It is too easy to criticise Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana, while comparing him to David de Gea is a pointless exercise as well.
That’s according to journalist Paolo Ciarravano, who has insisted those hitting out at the Cameroonian goalkeeper are just picking the low hanging fruit from the tree.
Onana joined Manchester United in a €50.2m deal from Inter Milan in the summer after a superb season with the Italian side in which he had been a key player in their run to the Champions League final.
That convinced Manchester United to reunite him with Erik ten Hag at Old Trafford, with the Dutchman seeing the 27-year-old as an ideal replacement for David de Gea, particularly as he was more capable playing out from the back.
Onana is yet to prove that, though, with a series of high-profile mistakes in the first half of the season and a somewhat disappointing record of 39 goals conceded in 25 games in all competitions.
15 of those goals came in just six Champions League games as Manchester United crashed out of the tournament with a sub-par performance in the group stages.
The criticism of the goalkeeper has been plentiful, with some even suggesting Manchester United’s decision to get rid of De Gea in favour of him was a poor one, but Ciarravano is having none of that.
“It’s easy to say that Onana was the wrong reinforcement at Manchester United. I say no or, rather, the choice to take this goalkeeper instead of another may have been wrong,” he said.
“What they had is a goalkeeper, in terms of career, incomparable to Onana. But it’s not a sticker game. It’s too easy to compare David De Gea with Onana, but we have to put everything into context.
“The De Gea of recent years was not the one of his first six, seven years at Manchester United. He is a goalkeeper with absolutely different characteristics compared to Onana, Manchester United wanted a goalkeeper who would allow the action to start from the back in a certain way.
“And in some ways, Onana helped in the possession phase. The problem is that he is not a technically flawless goalkeeper when it comes to saving and sometimes it went very well, other times not so much. He went very well at Inter in my opinion.
“Because he gave so much from the point of view of starting the action and then especially in the Champions League last year his performances should be remembered.
“Onana with his style, perhaps questionable and which makes the technicians frown, also managed to save important results and important qualifications. At Manchester United he hasn’t done it yet.”
